The internship will take place at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute's Community Outreach/Engagement department. The intern's plans include creating an outreach strategy to maintain community partnerships and identify new ones, participating in outreach events to educate about skin cancer and HPV, creating a Facebook page to increase awareness of Dana-Farber's services, and helping to coordinate a community partner forum. The intern will work on attending meetings, planning programs, researching current strategies, and strengthening Dana-Farber's external presence to increase access to its cancer screening and treatment services.

1. 10 Brookline Place, BP-128B ∙ Boston, MA 02215-5450 ∙ 617.582.7697
2015 Internship Plan
Internship Site: Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Community Outreach/Engagement
Mission: The mission of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is to provide expert, compassionate care to
children and adults with cancer while advancing the understanding, diagnosis, treatment, cure,
and prevention of cancer and related diseases. As an affiliate of Harvard Medical School and a
Comprehensive Cancer Center designated by the National Cancer Institute, the Institute also
provides training for new generations of physicians and scientists, designs programs that
promote public health particularly among high-risk and underserved populations, and
disseminates innovative patient therapies and scientific discoveries to our target community
across the United States and throughout the world.
“The role of Dana-Farber’s Community Benefits office is to support the Institute’s
goal to reduce cancer risk among medically underserved populations. To that
end, we work with city and state health departments, community partners, and
Boston-based coalitions to assess and monitor the needs of local residents with
respect to cancer control. In collaboration with staff throughout Dana-Farber, we
serve as a bridge with community organizations and establish evidence-based
and sustainable outreach programs.
We are on the front lines of supporting and collaborating on many programs
designed to eliminate disparities in breast, colon, and skin cancer; educate
diverse populations about tobacco cessation, human papillomavirus (HPV)
prevention and screening, and strengthen the support system for medically
underserved populations. In short, we are committed to making Dana-Farber’s
care and research findings more accessible to everyone within and outside its
walls.”
Vision: Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s ultimate goal is the eradication of cancer, AIDS, and
related diseases and the fear that they engender.
Core Values: IMPACT, EXCELLENCE, COMPASSION and RESPECT, Discovery.
Intern: May 2015 Syracuse University graduate, Samuel O. Boadu Jr.
Plans/Projects
1. Create a department-wide outreach strategy to help maintain excellent community partner
relations, identify new partnerships, and effectively respond to requests from the
community.
2. Participate in outsource facilities that the organization has such as the Whittier Street
Health Center

2. 10 Brookline Place, BP-128B ∙ Boston, MA 02215-5450 ∙ 617.582.7697
3. Participate in sun safety outreach events at local beaches to educate community members
on skin cancer prevention and early detection, also our HPV campaign in training youth
peer educators on HPV and vaccines.
4. Create a Community Benefits Facebook Page to increase awareness in the community of
cancer risk, our mission, and the specific offerings of each program.
5. Help to coordinate the first annual Dana-Farber’s Mammography Van Community
Partner Forum on July 16th.*
*Cohort has all day Life Career Planning workshop on July 16th, so I won’t be able to
participate in the actual forum, but will help with the preparation for the meeting.*
Interns Learning Objectives
1. To review and learn about the current outreach strategies of the community benefits
office in order to come up with innovative suggestions on how the organization can better
help serve the community and vulnerable populations; which in turn will increase
screening rates and decrease cancer prevalence in Boston’s urban communities.
2. To recognize target areas and understand how those areas have been identified.
3. To be exposed to the process of organizing community based programs as well as staff
meetings.
4. To find ways to implement office wide outreach strategies.
5. To increase my knowledge and experience with the administrative work that goes into
running the outreach/engagement office of a large organization like Dana-Farber Cancer
Institute.
6. To attend Public Health associate events in order to learn more about the field;
specifically in Boston.
7. To attend department and staff meetings in order to learn how the office operates and
collaborates with the External Affairs division.
The Action Plan
My action plan consists of attending meetings, community programs, planning and
strategic innovation, research, and increasing the Dana-Farber presence in the community in
order to strengthen our external affairs and increase the amount of people who are benefiting and
accessing our services. My work and projects are allowing me to learn how multidisciplinary
running a health facility truly is; there is so much more than providing quality health and there
are so many more departments and people that allow for the quality service to happen outside of
physicians.
I will be working with my preceptor and immediate supervisor to increase awareness on
cancer screening and Dana-Farber being an excellent entity to utilize to have your cancer
screenings. I will also be collaborating with multiple people in the office on different outreach
programs such as; training youth peer educators, assisting on our mobile health vehicles, and
helping lead workshops at health centers and community centers. I am also working on
increasing our number of community advocates as I have raised it being extremely important to
have members of the community who have had positive outcomes due to Dana-Farber speak up
on their experience in hopes of getting more people on board.

3. 10 Brookline Place, BP-128B ∙ Boston, MA 02215-5450 ∙ 617.582.7697
The first step to making this all happen is research. I will be reviewing past
implementation plans, fiscal year community benefit reports, and community health needs
assessment executive summaries to indicate new strategies and procedures to increase our
partners and community members engaging in our programs. I will be developing social media
pages for the organization in order to broaden our publicity, which creates a place where people
can view all that we have going on at once, receive reminders and notifications of events, and
learn more about cancer and the benefits of screening on their own time. When working with
disparate and disadvantaged populations I also made my organization aware that convenience is
key! I am also self training so I am an asset on community health education visits, making
myself knowledgeable in order to speak and comment on questions that may arise or even lead
some sessions myself. Lastly, I will be implementing these new outreach strategies and
conducting an assessment to see if the strategies chosen improved and increased our number of
screened patients.